The impact of a small film opened up a Pandora box of issues – starting with a discussion on surrogacy.
The film Badnaam Gali premiered on ZEE5 streaming service on 2019. The film was a comedy about a surrogate mother and a small-town husband. The film was starring Patralekha and Divyenndu Sharma. The film was superbly successful. The film Badnaang Gali was quite different from other films because it doesn’t promote surrogacy through a heavy story. It is introduced with a humorous and gossipy way along with culture of a colony in the city.
Badnaam Gali was the film which moved the focus from the challeges of lower and middle class women to the challenges faced by women who belong to the upper class. It is the change of culture which instantly crossed the boundries of movie theaters. It was the Badnaam Gali which resurfaced the issues of surrogacy, upper middle class issues, and heated morality.
The screen brought forth a story that was impactful.
The main premise of Badnaam Gali revolves around Randeep, a self sufficient and confident surrogate mother, who dismisses any accusations from her neighbors. Rather, she turns every blame on her into a joke. Opposing her is Nakkul, who comes from a conservative and traditional family and moves into the same suburbs which Randeep resides in, and is tangled within the Randeep’s gossip she is infamous for.
Despite all the comedic elements within the film, there exists a sharp undertone. A film as such, poses the lingering societal question which is ever present, and that is, why women are so easily slapped with labels, and the worse of them all, “badnaam.” It is the cruel reality presented that as women, the only thing we are allowed to do is live, and for that, we shall be judged.
The entire premise of the film was submerged to me. It is only on deeper thought that the film becomes a medium of targeting hypocricy and discrimination. It targets the stigma that comes with being a ulgy and unapologetic woman.
From WhatsApp Forwards to College Memes
About month after the release of the film, Randeep’s character one-liners filled with heavy sarcasm and sharpness started to gain meme status. The most viral one being her quote, “logon ko kaam hi kya hai, bas badnaam karna.” Within weeks, it turned into a WhatsApp forward joke every time relatives started to get overly concerned.
Patralekha’s Character would instantly turn people at Delhi University canteens or Mumbai hostels into fanatics. Posters with cheeky phrases “Apni gali, apni marzi” began to surface. Edits of Randeep’s comebacks with Gen Z captions started to flood Instagram pages.
In small towns, social media debates quickly became drawing room conversations. Local publications began to feature columns about surrogacy laws as a reaction to the surrogacy policy discussions ignited by the film, sparking questions like, Could surrogacy be a respectable choice to ponder? Even the song “Badnaam Gali” was able to turn people’s curiosity unlike other dry policy discussions.
The Effect of Ripple Fashion
Furthermore, Randeep’s character inspired mini-fashion trends. Young women seeking for more relaxed yet confident looks began to deeply admire Patralekha’s styling in the film with vibrant kurtis, bulky jhumkas, and signature red lipstick.
Lajpat Nagar and Sarojini’s smaller stores began capturing the essence of the “Badnaam Gali looks.” Patralekha chuckled during a later interview, saying, “I never thought a cotton kurti would get this much attention!” But it was an attitude that defined the fashion as iconic and not just the attire. It was no longer just about the “Randeep” persona rigidly set in fashion, it was about an attitude of unapologetic confidence.
How the Actors’ Journeys Intertwined
For Patralekha, Badnaam Gali was a Benchmark. After the thunderous debut in CityLights, she was eager for more roles of a more complex equilibrium to be cast in. Randeep was just that, a character of an empowered, multi-faceted woman in a humor packed plot. Patralekha has since said that she drew from the lives of the women from her own neighborhood in Delhi; women who carried themselves with pride and resilience no matter the gossip that was thrown at them.
Divyenndu, for his part, was already a popular character as Munna Bhaiya in Mirzapur. So it was a surprise to the audience watching to see him in the role of a judgmental,, socially inept outsider, but it worked. He has said that the film helped to “unlearn” biases that he didn’t know he had. He was unfiltered in how he discussed the idea of men inheriting biases against women’s choices—it was the script that made him face that.
Politics and Policy in Popcorn Packaging
What made Badnaam Gali much more visible was its timing. It was around the same time that India was considering the surrogacy regulation bill. Out of the blue, the media started mentioning the film in their discussions. We began to see headlines such as “Badnaam Gali Makes Surrogacy a Drawing Room Topic” in the national newspapers.
As the politicians argued on the morals and politics of it, the common man was enjoying a fictional surrogate who was making jokes and serving chai. It was cinema that was able to do what the debates could not — it was able to put a face to the issue. For a lot of the people who saw the show, it was Randeep who represented surrogate motherhood and the stigma that went with it started to feel like a less daunting issue.
The Buzz Behind the Curtains
The making of Badnaam Gali was not without its own set of stories. Filming within the colonies in the city of Delhi involved the filming crew having to look after the many curious neighbors who looked in on the filming. One time, Patralekha said that these colony aunties started to appear to watch these scenes and then began to talk about gossip regarding what was being filmed in a let’s pretend scenario in their minds.
Keeping the mood light and silly on the set is something that Shetty Ashwin has mastered – and Patralekha improving at this level is impressive. Randeep’s some of his sassiest dialogues were the outcomes of Patralekha integrating some lines that were as old as time. Divyenndu sprinkled some of his own quirkiness into Nakkul to make the character more loveable instead of the bland character he easily could have been.
“A Gali That Refuses To Be Forgotton”
Years later, Badnaam Gali somehow keeps coming up in conversations in pop culture. Be it a femninst panel where someone quotes the movie as an easier interpretation of the reproductive rights, or Twitter users fighting on the platform to use the dialogues as come backs, it really goes on living outside the screen.
It she show that even a mid budget OTT feature can manage to influence fashion, memes, and even political conversations when it is bold enough to be honest about the content of the film. To the fans, it is more than just a film. It’s reliving a memory when the “badnaam” gali became the epitome of the freedom to speak and the courage to taboo laugh, all while wearing a big smile.
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